“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years, and each time I hear the news I react not as a president but as anyone else would, as a parent,” Obama said. “And that was especially true today.”

***

What is “meaningful action”? Obama has explained this before: He wants a new assault weapons ban. My colleague Allison Benedikt is among those who wanted more from Obama, but that’s not how this works. To use two examples without conflating the scales of the tragedies: LBJ didn’t call for the Civil Rights Act on November 22, 1963, and George W. Bush didn’t ask for any military response on 9/11. Day one is when you tell people whether you’re going to pick up the cards. Showing those cards, that comes later.

***

Bloomberg’s full statement:

“With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.”

***

Enough!

Enough with putting off tomorrow what we should be talking about today. Enough with being afraid to step on someone’s delicate sensibilities when it comes to the Second Amendment. Enough with elected leaders who are too cowardly to confront the National Rifle Association and their ardent supporters. Enough with moms and dads and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and pastors and deacons who are afraid to make public the private anguish of mental illness.

The goal of this petition is to force the Obama Administration to produce legislation that limits access to guns. While a national dialogue is critical, laws are the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths.

Powerful lobbying groups allow the ownership of guns to reach beyond the Constitution’s intended purpose of the right to bear arms. Therefore, Congress must act on what is stated law, and face the reality that access to firearms reaches beyond what the Second Amendment intends to achieve.

***

Obama has been given several sad opportunities to address gun violence. In Tucson, he spoke of “a national conversation” commencing, “not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system.” After an attack on a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee, Obama said similar events “are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul-searching to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence.”

But that soul-searching did not happen in Obama’s first term. And before Friday’s shooting in Newtown, few thought Obama would devote political capital to any sort of serious push for new gun-control legislation. Though the National Rifle Association’s power has waned from its peak, Republicans remain firmly on the NRA’s side while Democrats remain deeply scarred by the gun-rights group’s success in ousting pro-gun-control legislators. It will be days before we know whether a massacre at an elementary school will be enough to force Obama and Congress to act.

***

“What’s he going to do? He’s not going to get legislation,” said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. “That’s obvious to anybody.”

Sabato and other experts predicted that Washington’s powerful gun lobby — and the many lawmakers from both parties who are cognizant of its influence — virtually assures the failure of any legislation aimed at curbing gun rights. At best, Sabato said, Obama could try other policy approaches in an attempt to improve public safety, such as by backing legislation that would require more metal detectors in schools and other public places…

Obama did not outline specifics or directly call on Congress to act, but many Democrats issued statements that echoed the president’s call for a policy response.

Many Democrats blame gun control for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential loss and there has been an increasing reluctance over the past decade to push the issue to the forefront of American politics. In 2006, Democrats won a majority in Congress in part by winning in conservative areas with candidates who were proudly pro-gun rights…

Democratic Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York avoided vague references altogether. His statement was purely sympathetic and stressed that Americans should “stand together with the community of Newtown.”

***

I teach at a state university with a campus gun-free policy, and quite a few of my students have permits to carry guns. After the Virginia Tech shooting a few years ago, one of them asked me if we could move class off campus, because she felt unsafe being unarmed. I certainly would have felt perfectly safe having her carry a gun in my presence; she was, and is, a responsible adult. I feel the same way about the other law students I know who have carry permits.

Gun-free zones are premised on a lie: that murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers. That’s an insult to honest people. Sometimes, it’s a deadly one. The notion that more guns mean more crime is wrong. In fact, as gun ownership has expanded over the past decade, crime has gone down.

Fortunately, the efforts to punish “the people who didn’t do it” are getting less traction these days.

On the outskirts of the vigil I met Tom Donlin, who’d made an ad hoc candle holder out of a Starbucks cup. “I just was walking by and saw this,” he said. “I’m not actually for gun control, so I probably disagree with these people. There’s strict gun control in Norway, and that gunman killed — what, something like 80 people?” He was still listening. “We might want to look at mental health laws, not gun laws.”

At another end of the crowd, a government worker named Jennifer Purl huddled in her green coat and complimented some activists on their signs. “Yes!” she said. “Close the gun show loophole.” She rattled off some other ideas for restricting guns, without banning them, and with consideration for the mental state of gun owners. “Nobody’s talking about banning guns! Every time there’s one of these tragedies, people run out to buy guns. It’s crazy, just crazy.”

Yes, unique among those nations most like us: Large, developed democracies with a healthy respect for the rule of law.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM

LOL. This administration and the dems are absolutely lawless ghouls. They have taken lawlessness and transparent lying to unprecedented levels and made a mockery of the concept of “Rule of Law”. Heck, they have even officially certified that “empathy” is a legitimate main criterion in assessing a judge or judicial decision, in direct opposition to the very foundation of Western jurisprudence with a history stretching back over three millenia.

Don’t talk to me about “respect for the Rule of Law” with this lawless administration, most of whom should have been jailed, already. They have made respect for the law a joke. Waivers, executive whim to declare that he won’t enforce laws he doesn’t like, totally ignoring other law-breaking because of “social justice” … give me a friggin break.

Yes, unique among those nations most like us: Large, developed democracies with a healthy respect for the rule of law. Sort that list by nation and then find one Western, developed nation with a rate anywhere near ours. Stop running from the truth: We Americans are a violent lot. In every other nation, a developed economy and respect for the rule of law coincides with joining the bottom of the list of intentional homicides. In every other nation except our own. Why??

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM

If you really wanted the truth, it’s right in front of your face. Compare America to those other “large, developed democracies with a healthy respect for the rule of law.”

Notice one glaring difference between us and them. But you’re a liar, so you won’t acknowledge it, will you?

Why do liberals insist upon excusing this monster’s behavior? That is what’s wrong with this country. We never hold anyone responsible for their poor decisions. We’ve become a paternalistic nanny state that always find an excuse for everything.

ButterflyDragon on December 14, 2012 at 9:35 PM

Because to do otherwise would force them to acknowledge a fundamental difference between good and evil, right and wrong. And that would completely destroy their philosophy of moral equivalence, whereby they regularly tear down American institutions as inherently flawed.

Yes, unique among those nations most like us: Large, developed democracies with a healthy respect for the rule of law. Sort that list by nation and then find one Western, developed nation with a rate anywhere near ours. Stop running from the truth: We Americans are a violent lot. In every other nation, a developed economy and respect for the rule of law coincides with joining the bottom of the list of intentional homicides. In every other nation except our own. Why??

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM

Now this smells of racism. Why do only Western democracies count and others don’t? For instance, how is Estonia not considered a developed nation? 20 years removed from the Cold War, and they’re doing very well economically…

Matt Baier, now a junior at the University of Connecticut, and other high school classmates recalled how deeply uncomfortable Mr. Lanza was in social situations.

Several said in separate interviews that it was their understanding that he had a developmental disorder. They said they had been told that the disorder was Asperger syndrome, which is considered to be a high functioning form of autism.

Right, none of them are developed, western economies. We’re talking places where the rule of law means much less than it does here. What about those places where the traditions are more similar? What about Europe, Japan, or Australia?

Why is it that when we look at societies most like our own, Americans are vastly more likely to kill?

Do you really feel that we should have the same number of murders as nations ravaged by warring militias or post-soviet crumbling empires? Are those nations really our peers?

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:26 PM

Well, let’s look at Switzerland. It has the second highest gun ownership rate of all industrialised countries behind the US. 22% of all households have fully automatic weapons. The gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept. The country has a population of 6 million, but there are estimated to be at least 2 million firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

In the US, 60 million (or less than 20%) of the population own 200 million guns. In Switzerland, there are less guns per capita, but VIRTUALLY EVERY HOME HAS AT LEAST ONE WEAPON.

The last mass shooting in Switzerland was in 2001 in Zug and the last one before that was in 1927.

Why is it that the Swiss are awash in guns, but don’t kill each other?

According to a study by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, based on data collected by the Center for Disease Control, 1.5 white Americans in 100,000 were shot and killed in 2007 — still higher than the Canadian rate of 0.6, but, given the population densities of the two nations, at least in the same ballpark. On the other hand, the rate for Hispanic Americans was an alarming 5.2 per 100,000 — more than three times the rate among whites Americans. The rate for African Americans was a grotesque 18.1 per 100,000, or roughly 12 times the rate among whites Americans. The rate for African-American males was an obscene 37.59 per 100,000.

Canada 1.6
Czech Republic 1.7
United Kingdom 1.2
Belgium 1.7

White America 1.5

sharrukin on December 14, 2012 at 9:17 PM

The article from the Daily Caller expands on this, but this is the crux of it. Guns aren’t the problem – it’s the people who use them, but as I said in another post the liberals can’t be bothered to deal with it because it would show their beliefs to be a death cult which breeds these problems.

Beslan: More than 1,100 hostages, including 777 children. More than 380 died.

More people died in ONE school massacre in Russia, with its strict gun control laws, than in every school shooting in the US in last ~20 years.

Resist We Much on December 14, 2012 at 9:32 PM

Across the board, everywhere, the stricter the gun control laws, the more innocents who will be killed by guns. Besides liberal politicians, like Bloomberg for instance, the people who most love strict gun controls are the criminals (and terrorists in the case of Beslan) who have no problem at all in acquiring guns.

And, the irony is that we have a government who even provided real assault weapons to murderous drug cartels in Mexico, a country with very strict gun control laws. Somehow I missed Obama’s tears over the killings of our border control agents and all the children in Mexico killed by his Fast and Furious arsenal.

Yes, unique among those nations most like us: Large, developed democracies with a healthy respect for the rule of law. Sort that list by nation and then find one Western, developed nation with a rate anywhere near ours. Stop running from the truth: We Americans are a violent lot. In every other nation, a developed economy and respect for the rule of law coincides with joining the bottom of the list of intentional homicides. In every other nation except our own. Why??

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM

And, outside of these horrific mass murders, where do the majority of murders occur? In drug-and-gang-infested areas of large urban cities that have strict gun laws that help ensure that many victims are defenseless while the drug-and-gang-infested perps kill away.

You do realize the Russian army gassed Beslan, killing everyone who was alive inside…right?

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:36 PM

What?! No! Liar. Beslan was overrun by terrorists that beat and murdered their captives. It’s not often I’ll run to the defense of Putin and the Russian military, but this ended after a three day siege in which little success was made through negotiation and the army had to storm what had become a bunker lined with explosives. They tried to save what few they could.

Besides, how did the creeps there overtake the school when Russia’s gun control laws should have made that impossible? Unless you’re full of crap there, too.

CT already has the toughest gun laws in the country. Including an assault weapons ban, gun registry, a CAP on how much ammo some one could buy in a year, and even taxes on ammo.

Raquel Pinkbullet on December 14, 2012 at 9:12 PM

If this is true, and I’m inclined to think that it is, then why would it not be reasonable to conclude that these innocents were in fact slaughtered by gun control. After all, it was the laws of CT that made it far less likely that anyone would have the wherewithal to defend this school and its precious children.
It wasn’t the presence of guns in the hands of an outlaw, it was the absence of guns in the hands of a responsible citizen, that produced this atrocity.

I’m certain every gun owner wished they had been at that elementary school at the exact moment the gunman opened fire. Meanwhile, there have been seven people so far this year who were less than eager to wait for an opportunity to use their guns.

Tom_Shipley on December 14, 2012 at 9:18 PM

In an estimated population of 314,941,991; that’s 0.0000000002% of the population eager to use their guns (trying to simplify “less than eager to wait”). In any other context, that would mean “no one”; in this context, it can only mean “almost no one.”

For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds.

6,677 people die every day in the United States. The top causes, ordered from most significant to least significant:

As it is, my tv will be on the lifetime channel for their christmas movies all weekend to avoid this story.

karenhasfreedom on December 14, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Must be nice to stick your head in the sand.

SnarkVader on December 14, 2012 at 9:37 PM

That was unnecessary. KHF has been a long time poster and is well versed in conservatism. Just because she has no need for the upcoming BS and navel gazing from the talking heads does not mean she is ignoring the issue.

According to a study by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, based on data collected by the Center for Disease Control, 1.5 white Americans in 100,000 were shot and killed in 2007 — still higher than the Canadian rate of 0.6, but, given the population densities of the two nations, at least in the same ballpark. On the other hand, the rate for Hispanic Americans was an alarming 5.2 per 100,000 — more than three times the rate among whites Americans. The rate for African Americans was a grotesque 18.1 per 100,000, or roughly 12 times the rate among whites Americans. The rate for African-American males was an obscene 37.59 per 100,000.

The fight over guns is irrelevant. We as a people are inherently violent and murderous. Anyone seeking to lessen their chances of being caught in the crossfire by way of policy is wasting their energy trying in any way to change that. What else can possibly explain our unique proclivity for murder among our peers?

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:12 PM

What seriously stupid tripe!

But, then I expect nothing less from an idiot liberal.

Americans didn’t invent murder or violence against others, it’s been around for thousands of years.

As usual, rather than considering what would make a 20 year old man take his rage out on a classroom of 5 year old children, the liberal immediately blames America first.

Well, I blame anti Americans, those who undermined our societal building block, the family unit.

I blame the pro abortion zealots who have so callously promoted a culture that glorifies the self over all even to the point of killing another in the pursuit of happiness.

I blame the anti God crowd who teach children that the human being is a malignancy to mother earth and no more significant or important than a fish two inches long.

This man is a product of liberal/progressive society. It is no surprise to me that once again, the liberal seeks to deny liberty and rights to others in an attempt to correct a problem they caused in the first place.

When there were some shootings and bombings in the ’90s, I remember the left and that fool Joe Liebermann racing to blame Doom II and later on Grand Theft Auto. Surely those nasty video games were to blame and must be regulated!

I wonder how many of the same will breathe fire in the same way at this film staring one of Barry’s loyal backers?

And, outside of these horrific mass murders, where do the majority of murders occur? In drug-and-gang-infested areas of large urban cities that have strict gun laws that help ensure that many victims are defenseless while the drug-and-gang-infested perps kill away.

See: Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc. All have very high rates of gun ownership. However, there is one thing they don’t have.

Good Solid B-Plus on December 14, 2012 at 9:49 PM

Israel, too. Huge amount of guns. Most people have a full automatics at home. Teens armed to the teeth walking through the streets every day. TEENS! Murder rate: about 0, except for the arab terrorists, of course. But even they don’t try any more terrorism with guns, since they tend to get blown away pretty quickly. They use bombs, now.

See, when you don’t have a second amendment, say as in Canada, the result is that UN soldiers take over and the homes of Canadians are invaded and ransacked by government troops. Who’d ever want to live under the oppressive regime of . . . of . . . Prime Minister Harper?

Okay, Canada is an exception. A complete fluke. Surely, any other technologically advanced country without a second amendment would just have to become an oppression fascist state where the citizens are dragged away at night never to be seen again. I mean, that’s what gun proponents say, right? That the second amendment is the only thing that prevents this tyranny, which is why – regardless of how many zillions of citizens get shot to death with a gun – you gots to keep your second amendment! Think of the children! (Well, not school children, of course – high school or public. Or college students. Or postal workers. Or movie goers. On second thought, don’t think of anyone. It might confuse you as to why we need all these guns to keep everybody safe. But rest assured, without a second amendment the government would round everybody up and put us on trains.)

Wait a minute, that makes no sense. No other civilized western country in the world has anything like the second amendment. High speed rail, perhaps, but nothing in the way of a concentration camp.

No one has refuted anything I’ve said. Every response is a variation of “it doesn’t matter”. Also one or two, “it’s because of black people” which I have to admit is at least an attempt to explain the cold hard facts, rather than to simply deny they exist.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised at his ignorance there. In that case it was again, after a long siege and what could be accomplished through negotiation had been accomplished. The gas killed maybe a quarter or so of the hostages that remained in there. That certainly couldn’t have been an easy decision to make… but something needed to be done. Again, gun related terrorism in a country with strict gun laws. Didn’t stop it.

Also can compare to Obama’s response to terrorism at Benghazi, which was to do f***-all, and let everybody die without making a peep. But we don’t talk about that…

When will you acknowledge that the majority of the violence is inner city violence?

wargamer6 on December 14, 2012 at 9:56 PM

Methinks at least part of the reason could be that every time humanity crowds into huge megacities, crime results because we are not ants or termites, and we were not created to live in giant hives and work like drones.

Please clear the air: state your argument plainly, so that we may discuss it.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:52 PM

Others have stated it for me. The murder rate among white non-Hispanic Americans is statistically insignificantly larger than those other “large Democracies” you talk about. So, when you say “we,” say who you really mean. I know you wish that those darn bluehaired teabaggin redneck crackers were shooting and killing people at rates astronomically larger than their brethren in Scandinavia, Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia, but the facts just don’t back it up.

Where does this ‘unique proclivity for violence’ rear its head the most? In places with heavy gun control, Democrat voters and a high AA population, like DC, Chicago and Detroit.

No one has refuted anything I’ve said. Every response is a variation of “it doesn’t matter”. Also one or two, “it’s because of black people” which I have to admit is at least an attempt to explain the cold hard facts, rather than to simply deny they exist.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:56 PM

Switzerland is awash in guns; yet, the Swiss do not kill each other. I asked you, “Why?”

Does that change anything? Inner city Americans are still Americans, and still more likely to murder than inner city Japanese or Germans or Spanish or Italians or Australians.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 10:00 PM

So every American has an equal chance in their life of committing a violent crime, ernie?

Stop prevaricating. African-Americans are more likely to murder than Germans or Spanish or Australians. White non-Hispanic Americans are just as likely to murder, if not less likely, and that’s with much greater access to firearms.

to be fair, that country has had active, armed rebel groups, and ak47s can be bought at flea markets.

sesquipedalian on December 14, 2012 at 10:01 PM

And let’s not forget has to deal on a weekly if not daily basis with suicide bombers. Or for THAT matter the very real danger of a hot war on their homeland where their nation’s very existence was on the line. The last time America had one was in the 1860’s, while they had multiple such wars in the last century.

The situation is not even remotely comparable. Even places like $hitcago don’t have to deal with some of what they do.

So why don’t you insist conservatives say that when they run for office? Why are there no conservative proposals for dealing with the problem of black and latino populations? Why do you resist speaking your mind on this issue?

No one has refuted anything I’ve said. Every response is a variation of “it doesn’t matter”. Also one or two, “it’s because of black people” which I have to admit is at least an attempt to explain the cold hard facts, rather than to simply deny they exist.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:56 PM

I said it was due to drugs and gangs, and you automatically assigned that to “black people”. Who’s really the racist here?

If this is true, and I’m inclined to think that it is, then why would it not be reasonable to conclude that these innocents were in fact slaughtered by gun control. After all, it was the laws of CT that made it far less likely that anyone would have the wherewithal to defend this school and its precious children.
It wasn’t the presence of guns in the hands of an outlaw, it was the absence of guns in the hands of a responsible citizen, that produced this atrocity.

Lew on December 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM

Been saying this all day, something the libs can never grasp, nor are they inclined to, given their belief that government is God and can do no wrong. Had one or two of the teachers or admins in that school been trained and carrying today, a few CT moms and dads would’ve been holding their children tonight, instead of having to identify them in a morgue.

Canada under Harper has recently made great strides at freedom of gun ownership. They undid a twenty year old law requiring the registry of long-guns after multiple studies determined that it was an unnecessary cost and accomplished nothing to prevent crime.

Of course that was a crazy Conservative partisan act, so controversial that likely next Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau recently said that it’s… a dead issue, completed legislation not worth fighting.

The Israeli murder rate is 2.1 per 100,000, 1/2 our 4.2, but over that of Japan, Germany, Italy, and even China.

ernesto on December 14, 2012 at 9:58 PM

LOL. You know that Israel is about 20% arab, right?

From a JPost article some years ago (though things haven’t changed measurably):

“While on average, Arab adults (over age 19) represent approximately 15% of the general population [of that age group], the average rate for reported crime stands at 42.7%, almost three times their representation in the population. A similar trend exists among Arab teens (ages 12-18). While from 1990-2006 they represented 22.8% of the population, they accounted for 33.13% of those accused of violent crime.”

And, from Wikipedia, which you love, I’m sure:

In 2009, 135 people were murdered in Israel. Two major motivations for homicide in Israel are violence against women (including honor killings in Muslim families) and politically motivated violence i.e. Arab terrorism against Israelis.

Get a brain, man. The arabs are the ones without the automatic weapons at home and the terrorists use bomsb, as I already said.